Colours and shapes

The list ends on direito and esquerdo, and the first of the two needs unpacking, because « right » in English has quietly taken on three jobs and direito has taken on three others. Two of them overlap. Both words name the side that is not the left one: a mão direita, vire à direita. Both name an entitlement. But English stops there and hands the rest to a second word, « law », whereas o direito is the entitlement and the whole body of law at once — the subject a student reads at university, the thing a constitution grants. The third job is where the two part company. In Portuguese, direito is also straight and upright: corta a direito tells somebody to cut in a straight line, and anda direito, said to a person, asks them to behave properly. What direito never means is correct. That work belongs to certo, and it is está certo, never está direito, that answers « that is right ».